Capitol Cider: Martijn Caspar Swart

Submitted by Anonymous on Tue, 2013-05-14 03:16

Capitol Cider is a Public House on Capitol Hill in Seattle, WA, featuring hard cider, beer, wine, mead, classic cocktails and local spirits. It has two- levels: a lower level and the main floor. The main floor is a small dining room for about 50, where Aristides Atelier master copy work will be displayed. Upstairs, a 7 seat bar upstairs, facing the brick back bar(original wall on the building) and 15+ foot ceilings. The lower level has an 8 seat bar, fireplace, game room with shuffleboards, and a giant mural painted by Aristides Atelier graduate, Tenold Sundberg, featuring his interpretation of a work by Anton Otto Fischer.

Aristides Atelier students thoughtfully chose their master copy work, then researched their subject(s). We are pleased to share the writing of second year student, Martijn Caspar Swart, here:

Mastercopy after Auguste Étienne François Mayer

Auguste Étienne François Mayer was a French painter who taught drawing at the French naval academy, Ecole Navale. Mayer created this larger scale image (41 x 63") of the famous naval battle of Trafalgar in 1938. The Battle of Trafalgar was led by the British admiral, Horatio Lord Nelson, and involved a surprise attach against French, Spanish, and Portugese fleets. There was some confusion of the ship names: originally believed to be the French Redoubtable and the English harbor-bound junker, Sandwich, are correctly depicted in Mayer's work as the French Bucentaure and British Victory. It is interesting to note that historical battle charts tell us that the latter two ships nearly collided with one another.

Mastercopy after Auguste Étienne François MayerTitle Unknown
1836

I was eager to complete a naval painting and found this image to be especially exciting due to the bursting of clouds and plumes of smoke. The drama of the phenomenal battle scene and high contrast of dark and light portrays an intensified mood that I am drawn to.

I began by seeking out a good reproduction of the piece that I could use as reference, then completed a small 4 x 8" study. When that was successful, I used a wipe-style of underpainting, then built up a second layer of lights and darks in order to best represent the piece's overall value. I found the addition of color to be quite experimental and educational, as I had been working exclusively in grisaille up until this point.

Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins was an influental American realist painter in his time and remains as such today. Over the course of his career, he completed hundreds of portraits-- including this 30 x 24" piece of Walt Whitman. Capturing the writer in his jolly old age, this portrait of Whitman was done just before he produced his final, "deathbed edition" of Leaves of Grass.

I admired Eakins' skill and the quick, a la prima style of this painting and the way that Whitman sits into the background easily: he fades into shadow but never becomes quite dark. It was a good challenge to carefully render his expressive, masterful brushstrokes.

I began by completing a 8 x 10" full color study so that I could see where and how to use the bright reds and blues. As with the Mayer piece, I began my final Eakins copy with a wipe-out style underpainting; unlike the Mayer piece, I found that I did not need to heighten my values with additional darks and lights. Once my underpainting was completed, I spent a few sessions adding blue-green to the jacket, then several more sessions on the remainder of the painting as I shuffled value, hue, and chroma and brightened the highlights in Whitman's face. For this piece, my palette consisted of Raw Umber, Yellow Ochre, Zinc White, Transparent Red Oxide, and English Red.

Notes on Process

For both pieces, I toned the canvas with Williamsburgh Brown-Pink and then did an oil sketch using Brown-Pink plus Old Holland Burnt Umber. This allowed me to establish a warmth that would come through the shadow areas. Having just begun working in grisaille, I found it challenging-- but ultimately rewarding --to modulate color, value, and detail while honoring the elegant design of both works.